The Heart Specialist (17 page)

In an alcove on the second floor were two more whey-faced dolls and a vase of freshly cut daffodils. A woman’s touch. The pale pink runner and flowery wallpaper also must have originated from a woman’s design. My hand closed a little more tightly around the handle of my satchel. What had I been thinking, a pickled heart in this place?

The servant made a noise in his throat to get my attention. He obviously did not appreciate the way I was looking with such curiosity at all the details of the Howlett home. He wanted to deliver me to the master and be done with it.

As I started walking again I smelled smoke. The end of the second-floor hall was pungent with it. I didn’t really need to be shown the way after all. All I needed was to follow my nose to the closed door, which was the source of the smell. I stood on the threshold breathing in the pepper-sweet scent of pipe tobacco.

There was a rustling inside the room after the servant knocked. I could hear someone rising. “Enter, my dear. Enter,” said Dr. Howlett, opening it wide. His scalp shone through thinning hair in the bright light from overhead. He looked more his age without the hat he had worn that morning. Was it vanity that had kept it on his head in public? His moustache was practically white in places, a detail I had failed to notice before. His eyes, however, were unchanged. They still danced playfully, giving him a youthful air. He dismissed the servant and turned to me, smiling warmly. “Was I hard to find?”

I shook my head. My hotel was only five blocks away, I told him. A succession of platitudes then jumped from my mouth like dry little toads. The house was lovely. The neighbourhood grand. What a perfect day it had been for a walk! I snapped my mouth shut in dismay.

He seemed to take in everything, starting with the nun-like charcoal habit I had put on at the hotel, thinking it looked dignified, going next to the now-grimy bandage swaddling my hand and settling finally on my sweaty face. With my good hand I clutched the satchel closer.

“Honoré’s,” he said quietly.

I stared into his eyes and to my complete mortification burst into tears. It was horrible. I had wanted so much to be strong, to show him the mettle of which I was made, and instead I’d burst out crying. Howlett had every right to dismiss me. Instead he came around the desk and offered me a handkerchief. He didn’t touch me, probably because we were alone and the situation awkward, but I could feel the heat of him as he bent over me. He sat me down then fetched another chair and joined me. “Your father used to carry that to our lectures,” he said, his voice reverent and sombre.

A fresh wave of tears rose in me. All the resentment I’d felt toward him for his role in barring me from McGill evaporated, insubstantial mist in the morning sun of his attention. It was too strange to hear someone speak of my father without rancour or shame. I bit the insides of my cheeks but this only served to increase my anguish. What must he be thinking? I must have seemed horribly weak.

When he next addressed me, however, his voice was kind. “You loved him, didn’t you? It was easy to love Honoré.”

He talked for a while about how my father had been his mentor and how he’d respected him almost to the point of worship. “It’s because of him I started smoking, you know,” he said, holding out his pipe. “We used to go at it like chimneys in the Dead House to mask the smell.” That gave me a start and I wondered about his moustache. Perhaps it too had been inspired by my father. It took some doing to imagine William Howlett, the object of admiration to so many of his own students, holding my own fallen father in awe.

He inhaled deeply. “Enough about him, Agnès,” he said, pronouncing my name as my father had. “You must tell me about yourself.”

It was too much. My head felt like a pumpkin, the brain scooped out and tossed away. If I could have fled I would have, but I was stuck there, mesmerized by his gaze. I looked down at his ink blotter and its wormy blue patterns. I studied the shelves behind him sagging with books: Virchow’s
Cellular Pathology
, Bigelow’s
Discourse on Self-Limited Diseases
. I spotted the textbook he had authored, his name shining in gold print on the spine.

His hands were folded in his lap. After a few more seconds he said something to fill me with gratitude. “You are stronger than you look. You persisted.” He paused and puffed on his pipe, watching the smoke dissipate with such concentration he seemed to forget all about me.

I began to speak. It was easier now he wasn’t looking. I opened my mouth and out my story poured; it had been there through the difficult years of my young womanhood, waiting for me to remove the cork. I told about my disappointment over McGill. How that had been the absolute lowest point of my entire life. I did not enter into details, my breakdown and months in bed. I was ashamed of this and didn’t wish to seem bitter or rancorous. He was unembarrassed about McGill, accepting the account of my hardships quite neutrally. At times he hardly seemed to be listening, which helped me get through my narrative. I recounted how I had ended up at Bishop’s Medical School through the intervention of a kind friend with connections. The friend was, of course, my former governess, but this fact I did not disclose. I told him about my work as an intern at the Montreal General Hospital and then my travels to Zurich and Vienna, where I’d laboured in some of the best university laboratories in the world. I larded my account with the names of prominent physicians. I had studied with the pathologists Kolisko and Albrecht and with Ortner in internal medicine.

His eyes widened with respect. Yes, I thought silently. I had met these men and dissected specimens alongside them with no help from him or from McGill.

I told him about my return to Canada. This part came out disjointed, punctuated by the blowing of my nose. I had stopped crying but my mouth was dry from emotion and from talking so much. I didn’t stop, however. I had never done this before, never put into words the story of my life as if it might be something worth listening to.

Howlett’s eyes had been averted throughout most of my talk, scanning the walls and ceiling, fixing on his desktop. When at last I stopped for air he turned to me. “Commendable.”

Commendable
. A single word but it meant the world at that moment, erasing his complicity in the McGill fiasco, erasing the fact that he had not tried to contact me all these years, even after he learned I was the daughter of his mentor.
Commendable
. Compensation indeed.

He sucked on his pipe and struck a match, releasing a fresh cloud of smoke into the room. “And now?” he asked from under a hazy halo. “What are you doing with yourself now?”

It was imperative to keep his dark eyes on me. I could hardly believe how close we had grown in twenty minutes’ time. It was as if he had known me forever. What could I say that might bring us closer still? He wouldn’t want to hear about my clinical practice, of that much I was sure. I wasn’t exactly a paragon of success. The museum was a better bet, even if my role there to date had been largely that of charwoman.

Howlett continued to draw on his pipe. He did not seem bored, although his gaze had remained oblique, settling now on a bookshelf, now on the skylight or the back of my chair. I talked about Dr. Clarke and the generosity he’d shown me. I told of the chaos of the museum in my first few days there, of the slow and difficult restoration of order. I spoke of the specimens: jars standing in row upon row, awaiting my attention. People thought it strange that a young woman would choose to spend her time in a room full of pickled remains. They couldn’t understand it. What they didn’t know I whispered in a voice so small he had to lean forward to hear was that these had been my playthings as a child.

Howlett laid his pipe down on a small white plate on his desk and smiled. “Honoré’s study,” he said.

“Yes,” I said, picturing it.

He nodded solemnly but soon his smile returned. “You were always different, weren’t you Agnès? You rather liked it there. That’s why this makes such sense. It’s as if Providence itself were guiding you. You’ve been lucky.”

The dusty old museum at McGill was suddenly given dignity. Howlett pulled a journal down from one of his shelves. “There’s a piece in here you must read about the pathology museum in London,” he said. “I practically lived there during my stint in that city as a student. It was marvellous, a shrine to death and life both. The mysteries of nature revealed.” He fixed me with his laughing eyes. “There’s nothing like it in America, Agnès. Perhaps it’s time we changed this, you and I?”

I nodded, only half believing that I was speaking with the great man. He was interested in my work to the point of suggesting a partnership. The sense of intimacy was palpable and I decided to show him the heart. The moment could not have been more propitious, but suddenly the bell rang, announcing dinner.

We both started. Howlett put his pipe on the plate and stood up. “We must go. Kitty will be waiting in the dining room and she likes me to be prompt. But we will continue this discussion, that much I promise you.”

I could hardly breathe I was so happy. I picked up my briefcase and rose to my feet with him. Years ago this man had spurned me, shutting me out of the place I longed to be, and now here I was in his study, telling him the story of my life as if he had intended it all along, as if I were someone worth attending to.

As I proceeded toward the door his hand alighted on my hip. He was looking straight ahead, intent on moving us both into the corridor, so it wasn’t really improper, but I was shocked. Sounds became amplified. The smell of pipe smoke was particularly strong. The floral print on the walls in the hallway jumped out in heightened gaudiness. Through it all I was aware of one thing above everything else — the burning spot beneath his hand where my iliac crest jutted out.

I repeated his wife’s name over and over in my head like a prayer. Howlett was married. I was about to sit down to a meal his wife had overseen. At that very moment she was waiting for me in her dining room, perhaps trying to imagine me just as I was trying to imagine her. The hand was still on my waist, exerting its pressure and heat. I shut my eyes.

THE MAHOGANY TABLE GLEAMED
. A five-pronged candelabra blazed in the centre. The silver place settings shimmered. At the head of the table stood Kitty Revere Howlett, watching us enter.

She was as stunning as the table she had laid for our benefit. She had fine golden hair. Her dress was elegant, made of pale velvet that drew attention to her perfect skin. I felt hunched and dumpy beside her. I was suddenly aware of my own hair, which was more ragged than usual as I had had but one hand with which to tend it back at the hotel. I wanted to hide my laughable excuse for a dress. My hand was bundled in gauze that was now a filthy ash colour. I was poorly coiffed, underdressed and entirely inadequate. How could I have thought Howlett would be attracted to me? I had been dreaming, that was all, forgetting for one delirious moment that a woman in my position could not afford the luxury.

While Howlett carved the meat Kitty showed me to my chair. She glanced more than once at my satchel, offering to have the manservant put it in the vestibule, but I explained that I did not wish to part with it. I placed it at my feet, leaning it against a table leg.

The little boy was to dine with us, which struck me as odd. He was no older than five or six, too young to endure the conversation of adults. His nose barely cleared the table. Revere they called him, after his mother’s family name.

I smiled at him but he was too shy to look directly at me. I must have intimidated him earlier during the shootout in the vestibule. Kitty meanwhile hadn’t a retiring bone in her body. She asked all kinds of questions, notably about my accident at the hospital. What a shame it was, she exclaimed, that I had injured myself on holiday.

“On business,” I said reflexively. “Officially I’m here for McGill.”

“Why yes, of course,” said Kitty, slightly taken aback at the correction. “Willie mentioned that. You’re a doctor in Montreal.”

The little boy looked up at me, his mouth dropping open in surprise. “Like Father?” The words came out before he could stop them and he blushed with embarrassment.

“Like Father, yes,” said Howlett, still at the sideboard carving.

“But she can’t be,” the boy persisted.

Perhaps he didn’t know that women could be doctors. Or he’d believed me to be a sharpshooter. His reasons were to remain a mystery because at that moment Kitty intervened, shushing her son and warning him to mind his manners.

“I am a doctor,” I explained, ostensibly to the mother but also for the benefit of the silenced boy, “but I run a museum as well. That’s my principal occupation. Your husband knows our collection.”

“A museum,” Kitty said. “How marvellous. And what sorts of things do you have on display?”

I glanced at Howlett but he was at the sideboard, his back turned to me. I was on my own. Surely Kitty wouldn’t want to hear about diseased organs at a table laid with such care. Rivers had warned me to avoid talk of medicine tonight but Kitty looked at me with anticipation.

“Things of use to students,” I said vaguely, waving my good hand. “We’re part of the medical school.”

To my relief Kitty let the subject go. She was probably one of those women who had a list of things appropriate for discussion at mealtimes and pity the guest who strayed.

“Willie was at McGill as you no doubt know. He absolutely loved his time there.”

Howlett chose that moment to interrupt with a platter of steaming chicken. You could see the order of his mind even in this simple task. Thin slices of breast were arranged in one corner, drumsticks and dark meat in another. Stuffing was piled neatly at the centre. “Here you go, ladies and gent,” he said, laying the platter on the table and bowing theatrically. “One beautifully roasted bird, care of your most excellent hostess, Kitty Revere Howlett.”

Kitty blushed and then recited grace. I could not pass plates and serving bowls on as well as the others. I had to take each dish in my good hand, place it on the table, take up the serving spoon or fork with the same hand, serve myself, return the spoon, then pass the dish on to Howlett on my right. The little boy watched intently, cringing when I raised my bandaged hand.